At Salinas police Officer Dave Crabill Jr.'s swearing in ceremony, Cmdr. Dave Crabill Sr. said he was honored that his son wore the same badge he did when he was sworn in, in 1988. / Provided

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Alfred Larkin, a former Salinas reserve officer, proved a trove of knowledge for his nephew, Salinas police Cmdr. Dan Perez, when Perez applied to the Salinas Police Department and the Monterey County Sheriff's Office. / Provided

Twenty-five years after the fact, Larry Shaw still remembers with perfect clarity his son’s first day as a newly minted Salinas police officer.

“I was sitting at my desk and he walked in, his very first day as a police officer, and he was carrying a nicely pressed uniform shirt on one hanger and a ballistics vest hanging from a hanger in the other hand,” Larry Shaw recounted. “I said to myself, ‘I have given this kid the wrong impression of employment. What 21-year-old goes to work and puts on a ballistics vest?’ ”

At the time a 17-year law enforcement veteran, Larry Shaw knew the dangers of the job and the generous potential for injury. His reaction was, understandably, parental.

“I didn’t recognize the danger for me when I was a line-level officer, but as soon as he came on the board it was like, ‘Holy smokes, this could be a dangerous job,’ ” Shaw recalled. “I just wanted him to do something different.”

Yet, watching Cmdr. Dave Shaw as he rises through the ranks at the Salinas Police Department has given Larry Shaw a sense of pride, knowing his son is doing something he not only enjoys, but at which he excels.

However, the pride and the nerves together make for a potent internal conflict — one many law-dog fathers have known as they watched their children take the first tentative steps onto the same thin blue line.

'I'm not the first one to wear the Salinas police uniform'

Cmdr. Dan Perez grew up under the tutelage of his father, Dan Perez Sr., who became a reserve officer for the Gonzales and Soledad police departments in 1968 and 1973, respectively, following a career in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Although Dan Perez Sr. had ambitions of switching careers for a full-time job in law enforcement, an industrial accident at Fort Ord put an end to that dream, Perez said. Still, his father’s militaristic mindset persisted, giving Perez the benefit of what he called a “very structured” upbringing.

“Sometimes it’s not easy being a cop’s kid,” he said. “You have certain expectations not to mess up or to embarrass your father by becoming a crook or by getting into trouble. I think that helped me, knowing I didn’t want to disappoint my family and knowing I might want to go into this profession someday.”

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With the help of his uncles Robert Perez, Richard Perez and Alfred Larkin, veterans of the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and the Salinas Police Department reserves, Perez began tackling the question of a law enforcement future while he was in high school. Like his father, he opted to first become a reserve officer before applying to the MCSO and SPD.

The decision to make a career of police work was entirely his own, Perez said.

“None of them encouraged me to go into it and none of them pressured me to go into it. And I think I know why,” he said. “In the public safety realm you deal with a lot of unhappiness and human tragedy, so if you don’t want to do this job, those kinds of things, the human tragedy part, is just going to make it worse and you’re not going to be happy in your job.”

Advice all three uncles echoed and Perez took to heart included advancing his education beyond the scope of criminology. As a result, Perez sought a bachelor’s degree in organizational behavior and a master’s degree in human resources — a decision that ultimately helped move his career forward in law enforcement and insures him employment outside police work should he ever be injured on the job.

Now a father of three, Perez said he would attempt to quell his nerves and instead adopt a supportive attitude should any of his children opt to go into law enforcement.

“I think most parents are protective of their children and I know how many close calls I’ve had where things could have gone bad really quickly and I wouldn’t want any of them to be in a situation that could go bad like that,” he said. “But, on the other hand, if that’s the career choice they made, I would have to support them.”

'He tried to talk me out of it'

Before Larry Shaw entirely came to grips with the sight of his son wearing a ballistics vest, he tried another tactic, Dave Shaw recalled.

“He tried to talk me out of it, he tried to get me to be a school teacher or something like that,” Dave Shaw said. “And then when he finally realized this was the direction I wanted to go in, he tried to talk me into staying in school and go to work for a federal agency or a state agency where you can travel around and do a lot of things.”

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It was an understandable reaction, Dave Shaw said. Although Larry Shaw was in a management position when his son came on board in 1988, he still knew the dangers most Salinas street cops faced day in and out.

The stress on family alone is enough to deter some from the job, Dave Shaw said.

“He knew how hard the shift work could be on the family, the long hours and the calls that come in the middle of the night,” he said. “He knew the dangers the job faced, and I think he just wanted to direct me to a place where I wasn’t in such a crazy lifestyle.”

Despite the push in the opposite direction, Dave Shaw developed an early interest in law enforcement and when he was sworn into the Salinas Police Department in 1988, Larry and Dave Shaw became the first father-son team concurrently employed by the agency.

“I liked the idea of watching what my dad did and seeing how satisfied he was when he would go out and make a big case or a good arrest and how proud he was of what he did,” Dave Shaw said. “As I got a little older into my teenage years, he and I discussed it quite a bit and I found out it wasn’t so much the big arrest, it was what he was doing for the city.”

Before fully swearing on, Dave Shaw began his tenure with the Police Departmetn as a reserve officer in 1987. The gap of time the two spent working full time at the department together spanned only several months before Larry Shaw left to become a police chief in Yreka.

“I had to be very careful and cautious I didn’t show any favoritism toward him or of doing the opposite and making an example of him just to prove I was being fair to all the other officers,” Larry Shaw said. “So there was a little bit of a challenge there.”

From his father, Dave Shaw said he learned about perspective and fairness. The latter is a trait Larry Shaw said he hoped to have instilled in his son long before Dave Shaw first picked up a ballistics vest.

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“It’s important at the end of the day you make the right decision that you can go home at night and know you did the right thing,” he said. “Contrary to the belief of some, I know many thousands of cops who believe the law is important and believe it should be upheld. I tried to instill that in David.”

'I've bled Salinas PD blue going on now for 26 years'

Even without proffering the singular name as evidence, Dave Crabill Sr. and Dave Crabill Jr. are undoubtedly related.

Physically, the two make an imposing pair. Both share the same solid build, close-cropped haircut and even voice intonation. However, beyond the physical, Cmdr. Crabill and Officer Crabill are only 25 years separated in their law enforcement careers.

Dave Crabill Sr. first pinned the Salinas badge on his chest the year his son was born. Over two decades later, Dave Crabill Jr. was pinned during his swearing-in ceremony with the same badge his father wore when he was sworn in.

Like most police children, Dave Jr. remembered watching “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted” when he wasn’t playing cops and robbers with his little brother.

Outside the two requirements that his sons become bilingual and receive their bachelor’s degrees, Dave Sr. said his sons’ futures were entirely in their own hands. However, when Dave Jr. announced his intention to apply to the police academy, the law enforcement veteran said he was elated.

“I was extremely proud,” he said. “Secretly, it’s been a desire of mine that one or both of my sons would follow in my footsteps, because I’ve had such a rewarding career here and I’ve bled Salinas PD blue for going on now 26 years. That’s all I’ve known.”

For Dave Crabill Jr., applying to the academy was never a question.

“I’ve worked retail and hospitality and I like those jobs but I grew up thinking I wanted to be a police officer,” he said. “I was going to be a police officer after school because that’s what my dad did and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

As a manager, Dave Sr. said he removes himself from all decisions when it comes to his son professionally, and 14 months into his work at the Salinas Police Department, Dave Jr. said he is working on the daunting process of trying to fill his father’s shoes.

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Asking who the better cop is, is “an unfair question,” Dave Sr. said after Dave Jr. merely pointed to his father and said, “He is.”

“Certainly I have going on 26 years of experience,” the senior Crabill said. “But what I will say is comparing Dave to where I was at his age, he is far beyond with regards to his experience, his education, how he has interacted with people … in comparison, for me at 14 months into my career he is far beyond where I was.”

Dave Jr. said he benefits from his father’s wisdom during the off-hours when he wonders whether he tackled a situation properly.

“If there’s something that bothers me or something that happens I’ll kind of ask him how he might have done it if I have doubts I did something wrong,” Dave Jr. said. “It’s usually, ‘What would you do?’ or ‘How do you do this?’ ”

There are occasions when the younger Crabill actions might not parallel what the older Crabill might have done, but that doesn’t mean his son took an ineffective route, Dave Crabill Sr. said.

“We’ll talk about it, and certainly many of the times what he did is right, but potentially I would have done it differently,” Dave Sr. said. “But the parameters are, with me, as long as it’s safe and as long as it’s legal, we’ll try it.”